kevcookie Posted April 4, 2011 Share Posted April 4, 2011 I consider myself an atheist in that I do not believe in god and do not follow a religion. This is not through lack of evidence but a personal choice based on my own opinion having read and heard various views. I do however believe in ghosts and have seen one. I'm not sure ghosts prove any sort of life after death theory. I view it more of a science than anything connected to religion. For example ghosts are experienced a lot in areas with high electrical impulses due to earthly elements etc How can that be religion based? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NikitaIndia Posted April 4, 2011 Share Posted April 4, 2011 I believe in God so I do not believe in Ghost. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
donkey Posted April 4, 2011 Share Posted April 4, 2011 I believe in God so I do not believe in Ghost. Not even the holy ghost? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
depoix Posted April 4, 2011 Share Posted April 4, 2011 perhaps the ghosts are the souls of people who didnt believe in heaven so are now in purgatory Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
plekhanov Posted April 4, 2011 Share Posted April 4, 2011 Without God there is no adequate explanation of how the universe was created or to explain our purpose in life . It is amazing that so many people believe that God is a fable, and they will go to great lengths to disprove that there isn't such a thing. 'God' doesn't explain anything, it's just a concept used by scared people to try and fit a comforting narrative around things they don't understand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
plekhanov Posted April 4, 2011 Share Posted April 4, 2011 Wouldn't it conflict with the very essence of what an atheist is? Of course it doesn't, as was explained to you in the simplest possible terms just last year, have you really have forgotten all of that already? It means that it is possible to be an atheist and believe in ghosts/reincarnation. It's really quite simple. Atheism means lack of belief in god/gods, nothing more. What would make reincarnation or ghosts more plausable than God/s? Nothing at all, you misunderstand. Being an atheist doesn't mean you don't believe in all superstitions, it just means you don't believe in god/s. What would make reincarnation or ghosts more plausable than God/s? I appreciate that, but believing in the spirits of dead people and accepting that after death, the human soul can return in another body, yet dismissing the existance of god/s:confused: What's so confusing about people believing in some but not all of the fanciful supernatural notions people have dreamt up over the millennia? Once people leave the evidence behind and put their faith in magic anything goes. That's a very fair point, but when all is said and done, the majority of "SF atheists" don't take that slant when they're knocking the existance of god/s. They usually adopt the Dawkins view, branding it unsubstanciated nonesense unsupported by any credible evidence. So "Those atheists" would be an hypocrite in my book. Why would it be hypocritical to believe in ghosts or reincarnation but not gods? So far as I'm aware there's nothing inherent in the concept of ghosts or reincarnation which requires a parallel belief in deities to be internally consistent. So it's not hypocritical so be a atheist who beliefs in ghosts so long as you don't criticise others for having baseless beliefs. Any atheists who criticised theists for having fanciful beliefs whilst themselves having similarly baseless magical beliefs would be a hypocrites but I'm not aware of any such posters on SF. The atheists on here seem to be generally materialist/sceptical/naturalistic... when it comes to gods, ghosts, fairies, astrology... and so in no way hypocritical. The 'new atheist' movement is in reality a more generalised sceptical/materialist/naturalist movement and opposed to 'woo-woo' of all kinds. The atheist stuff just gets much more press than the rest as religions are by some distance the most powerful and established purveyors of woo that have grown used to being protected from criticism in ways most other woo merchants can only dream of. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sccsux Posted April 4, 2011 Share Posted April 4, 2011 <snip> Ghosts, gods, voodoo, witchcraft, astrology ... It's all a load of gibberish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karis Posted April 4, 2011 Share Posted April 4, 2011 A ghost is the energy, soul or personality of a person who has died and is in limbo between this plane of existence and the next one. These spirits do not know they are dead and very often they have died under traumatic, or highly emotional circumstances. Ghosts can be perceived by the living in a number of ways: through sight (apparitions), sound (voices), smell (frangrances), touch - and sometimes they can just be sensed. So I don't think an atheist can believe in ghosts and not in the divine spirit which is GOD. There is no evidence - of any kind - to suggest this is the case. This is all pure speculation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dronfieldman Posted April 4, 2011 Share Posted April 4, 2011 Mr Prime is clearly taking a level-headed, balanced, sensible view of this subject. Essentially, we don't know what the real explanation for ghosts is. However, almost certainly misperception accounts for some sightings, as do hypnopompic hallucinations and hallucinogenic drugs, etc. It still leaves some cases, however, where these normal explanations don't seem to fit and it's probably the case that retrocognition (Stone Tape theory) account for some sightings and clairvoyantly seeing spirits accounts for others. The Stone Tape theory has been around for a long time and was not something invented just for a BBC drama. With both of my suggested paranormal explanations, it does seem that you need to be psychically sensitive to be able to pick up such sightings - otherwise many more people would have had such experiences, e.g. I've never seen a ghost, despite having visited numerous allegedly haunted premisses to investigate such sightings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dronfieldman Posted April 4, 2011 Share Posted April 4, 2011 Without God there is no adequate explanation of how the universe was created or to explain our purpose in life . It is amazing that so many people believe that God is a fable, and they will go to great lengths to disprove that there isn't such a thing. I have seen a UFO hovering over Don Valley about 15 years ago. The UFO was shadowed by two helicopters, one red and one black with no markings. No mention in any of the local newspapers. So I do believe we are all part of one big universal brotherhood. *************************************************** An aetheist would say that there is no intrinsic purpose in life. However, a humanist would say, in effect, that we should make one, i.e. that we should make the World a better place for us and our children and our children's children, to live in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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